iSpace Odyssey
by dpp3530
Summary: What could have been in iSpace Out. Cam.
1. iSpace Out Redux

**So, a couple of notes here. This is a Cam story, as all of mine have been so far. At the start of this story, Carly and Sam are already together. This is going to be a pretty long story already, so I decided to leave how they got that way up to your imagination. If you really must have an answer, go back and read _iDate Sam, Not Freddie!_ This isn't exactly intended as a sequel, but the tone of their relationship is similar, so it should give you some ideas. In addition, because the tone is similar to that story, we're going to pretend that the girls (and Freddie, of course) are a little older than they were in _iSpace_ _Out_, let's say 17. **

**As usual, if the Cam pairing offends you, please stop reading now, and thanks for not reviewing. Otherwise, enjoy, and reviews and constructive criticsm are welcome. **

**Also, I'm a bit of a sci-fi geek, so if you notice some classic sci-fi references in the story, enjoy the easter eggs. If you don't, don't worry, it shouldn't hinder your enjoyment of the story. **

"Carly… Carly…" The young brunette woke to the sound of her best friend and tech producer's voice calling her. "Do you hear that? It sounds like an animal eating."

Carly Shay had to admit, she did hear something suspicious, but when your girlfriend was Samantha Puckett, strange noises in the middle of the night were nothing unusual. She suspected she knew the source of the noise. Carly crawled across her bunk and turned on the light. Sure enough, as she anticipated, the little blonde was curled up in the corner, but that didn't look like powdered nuts she was eating. "Sam!" Carly yelled.

"Yeah?" her girlfriend replied.

"What are you eating?" she questioned.

"A brisket."

Leave it to Sam to break the rules even in a space simulator. "You smuggled a brisket in here?" Carly said, shocked.

"And some cream corn," the blonde replied. "And it's a good thing I did because I'm _freaking_ out being trapped in here."

Sam did look a bit flustered, but that was no excuse. This was such a tremendous opportunity for them and for the show. "You're going to get us disqualified," Carly scolded.

Freddie seconded his friend, "You know we're not supposed to have 'earth food' in here." Meanwhile his mouth was watering for some real, unpowdered meat. He lunged off the bunk toward the blonde, "Give me some of that meat, Sam!"

So began a brief battle between the two of them, ending when Freddie inadvertently hit the automatic fire suppression system. Carly seized the moment in order to lecture both of her friends, "What is wrong with you two?"

"It's this cramped little pod," Sam whined.

"We can't take it," Freddie agreed.

"Well, stop! Do you know how amazing it would be for us if _iCarly_ gets to go into space? We'll be _legendary_! Now both of you just stay calm and go to sleep." With that the other two climbed back into bed and Carly turned off the lights.

A few minutes later, though, the claustrophobia got to the brunette as well. "I CAN'T TAKE IT IN HERE!" Carly screamed. "I feel like I'm in a walnut!"

Despite Freddie's best efforts to calm her, Carly continued to freak out even worse. As she was slamming her body against the door trying to get out, she felt familiar slim hands around her waist and warm breath against her ear. "Calm down, Cupcake," her girlfriend whispered. Carly felt her partner give her a gentle kiss on the side of her neck. Normally, she would have chastised Sam for being romantic in front of Freddie, but right now, it had a calming effect. Sam continued, suggestively, "Tell you what, babe. If you can be good for one more day, just 28 more hours, I'll make it up to you when we get home"

That was enough for Carly. Her breathing returned to normal and the walls didn't seem so closed in anymore. "Deal," she whispered back to Sam. "Let's go back to bed."

Freddie was still staring wide-eyed. He knew his two friends were romantically involved, and he supported them. It was just that they were rarely that affectionate in front of him. All he usually saw of their love life was some hand holding, pet names, and the occasional little kiss in the hallway at school. Interesting images formed in his mind. Freddie _was_ a teenaged boy, after all. He'd thought Carly was beautiful from the moment he saw her through his peephole seven years ago, and while Sam might be the spawn of the devil, there was no denying that the blonde was hot. It would make for some exciting dreams tonight.

Day two in the simulator was far less eventful than day one. Now that they knew which buttons on the control panel to avoid, they were able to film a simulated web show from space. With the show safely stored on Freddie's hard drive (with a backup on the USB key in his pocket), and reconstituted powdered spaghetti filling their stomachs, they settled in for an early night.

At four in the morning, they were awakened by the sound of the door opening. In walked four people: eccentric billionaire Richard Blanton; Dr. Zach Smith, the stone-faced science nerd who was proctoring the experiment; and the _ExerciseRocks_ team, both looking dejected. A.J., the male half of the team, had a black eye, and Grace, his co-host, had an icepack on her hand.

The terminally cheerful billionaire spoke up, "Well, _iCarly _team, it looks like you made it for 36 hours. Congratulations!"

Sam noticed the condition of their competitors and had to ask, "What happened to those two?"

This time, Dr. Smith spoke, "Space Madness. They got into a fistfight at hour 30. I'm afraid we had to disqualify them."

"He stepped on my foot!" Grace complained.

"I stumbled forward when you hit me in the back of the head with the bed," her teammate defended himself.

"Anyway," Blanton continued, pushing between the fighting web hosts, "since they didn't make it, and your team did, _iCarly_ will be the first web show broadcast from space!"

Freddie pressed the RANDOM DANCING button on the control panel and the three friends began celebrating wildly, along with Mr. Blanton, until Dr. Smith spoke again.

"You just need to get your parents to sign the release forms."


	2. iShould Have Known

Marissa Benson was livid as she barreled into the Shay apartment. She was dragging her son by the arm behind her. "Spencer! How could you let my Freddie-Bear go to Spokane in a helicopter? I trusted you to look out for him while I was away!"

The hapless artist tried to defend himself, "You never said anything. I didn't even know you left until Freddie said so."

The older woman wasn't put off so easy, "That's no excuse. He could have been hurt or killed in one of those dangerous contraptions."

From the couch, where she and Carly were snuggled together watching Girly Cow, Sam spoke up, "Geez, you'll let him go up in a spaceship, but not a helicopter. You're crazy, lady!" She didn't notice Freddie frantically shaking his head until it was too late.

"A spaceship?" Mrs. Benson questioned."Fredward Benson! You told me you were going to Space _Camp_. That's what I signed those forms for!" Then it clicked, "Wait a minute, you mean that _Spacecraft Dos_ thing I heard about on the news. No way! No son of mine is going up in an untested prototype!"

Freddie tried to reason, "It's been tested, Mom! Just not, ya know, full scale."

"No way, it's way too dangerous. Besides, you know you're allergic to zero gravity," his mother explained.

"I am not allergic to zero gravity." Freddie protested. "I've never even been in zero G, how could I be allergic?"

As the sanest, most rational person in the room, Carly knew she had to speak up. "Mrs. Benson, with all due respect, we can't do _iCarly_ without Freddie, and Spencer and Sam's mom have both signed off on it. Even my dad was okay with it. This is such a great opportunity for the show and for Freddie. Just think of how it would help his college applications to say he produced the first web show in space."

Mrs. Benson was calmer, but no less firm in her decision. "I'm sorry, Carly. If you and _that one_ want to kill yourselves going up in that thing, that's up to you. But my Freddie is keeping his feet firmly on the ground." She turned to her son, "Come on Freddie, it's time for your flea inspection."

"I thought it was ticks," Sam said helpfully.

"No," Marissa corrected her, "Tick inspection is on Tuesday, flea inspections are on Friday." She dragged Freddie towards the door by the wrist.

The tech producer looked back at his two best friends and mouthed the words, "I'll talk to her."

Three hours later, the trio was just finishing up another successful episode of _iCarly_, in which they announced that the next week's episode would be broadcasting from space. Carly had looked over at Freddie, who gave her a positive nod before she said it on-air.

"So, you managed to talk mommie dearest into letting you go?" Sam asked.

"Um, no," the boy admitted, sheepishly. "I tried really hard, but she wouldn't budge."

Carly jumped in, "What? Then why did you-"

"It'll be okay, Carly," Freddie cut her off. "I emailed Mr. Blanton. There's a very sophisticated computer on board the ship, and we can use its uplink to let me control the cameras from the ground. They'll even put in a special panel at ground control with all the equipment I need."

"So, she's letting you go to Spokane again?" Carly needed to be clear.

"Yeah, you convinced her that it would be good for my future if I produced the first web show in space, as long as I did it from the ground. She's going to let me go _if_ I let her drive us to Spokane."

"Arrgghh!" Sam cried, "Four and a half hours in the car with Mrs. Clean. Kill me now!"

"Sam!" Carly scolded her. Then she turned to Freddie, "My dad wanted Spencer to come along, just in case. Do you think your mom would drive him, too?"

"Sure," Freddie answered, "there's plenty of room in my mom's Volvo wagon. I'll go check with her to make sure." With that, the young man left the studio.

Carly turned to her girlfriend as they watched him leave. "Alone at last," she said, advancing on the blonde. Then she realized Sam was giving her _the look_. "What?" she questioned.

"You're really going to let Mrs. Nutcase drive us all that way?" Sam started, "Don't you remember what happened last time? Anti-bacterial wipes every time we got back in the car." She shuddered. "My fingers still smell like that stuff."

"That was probably the last time you washed your fingers," Carly joked. Despite appearances, the blonde actually washed every time she ate, as well as after other activities which required it.

Sam laughed. Two could play at that game. "You didn't seem to mind my dirty fingers last night, Cupcake" the blonde smirked, wiggling them suggestively.

"Sam!" the brunette scolded again, "Is that all you ever think about?"

"No," the blonde answered, with her trademark smirk. "There's ham."

"You're lucky I love you or I might take offense at that," Carly answered, kissing her girlfriend's cheek.

"I love you too, Cupcake," Sam replied, "even more than ham."

"Don't worry, Mama, you can borrow the noise-cancelling headphones Freddie got me for Christmas last year. We can share my Pearpod and that'll drown her out," Carly suggested.

"Okay," Sam conceded.

"Let's go get ready for bed," the brunette suggested.

"I'll wash my fingers," the blonde replied, winking, causing the younger girl to blush.


	3. iTake the Tour

**There's a lot of build up here, but it's all necessary to the plot. The ship is based on the **_**Virgin Galactic Spaceship Two**_** (Google it), only bigger. It's also based on some ideas for "space cruise ships" that I saw on Science Channel. Yes, I'm a nerd. Bear with me, though. **

It was just after 4:00PM on Wednesday when the group rolled into the parking lot of the SpaceCations complex in Spokane. They had left at 8:30AM for the four and a half hour drive, but with Mrs. Benson's obsessive need to clean every rest area they stopped at, and Sam insistence that they stop for food every hour, the trip took nearly twice as long as they expected. Nerves were frayed and tensions were high.

They were met in the front lobby by Richard Blanton himself. "Hey! It's my new favorite web hostesses. Are we ready to get this show on the road?" Using a blue keycard to access secured areas, he lead them down the hallway to the main control room, where they were met by Dr. Smith.

Freddie was in awe of the technology in the room. Just the enormous monitors lining three walls of the room must have cost a small fortune. The room was lined with rows of control consoles, similar to what he'd seen when his mother took him to the Johnson Space Center in Houston a few years ago, except even more high tech. A number of technicians manned these consoles. "Wow, this must've cost a bundle," Freddie mumbled in his excitement.

"I'm a billionaire, I can afford it," Blanton said by way of explanation. "Besides, if this works, I expect to have plenty of paying customers who'll want to spend a week in space."

"A week!" Carly and Sam both squealed, shocked.

Dr. Smith cut in, "You'll be flying a modified mission profile, only 48 hours. Liftoff is at 0900 tomorrow-"

Blanton interrupted, "That's nine o'clock."

Smith glared at his clueless boss, who didn't even seem to notice. The scientist continued, "Once you're in orbit, you'll spend the rest of tomorrow getting acclimated to zero-G, then Friday, you'll rehearse the web show, making sure we iron all of the kinks out of the camera control system. Friday evening, on your normal schedule, you'll broadcast the web show live from space, then Saturday morning at 0800, we'll begin de-orbit procedures. You should be back on the ground by 0900."

"Excuse me," Carly spoke up. "Will we be the only ones going on this flight, or will there be paying customers?"

"It will be just the two of you, alone in space," Blanton answered.

"What about the pilot?" Mrs. Benson spoke up.

Dr. Smith fielded the question, "There is no pilot. The computer manages the entire mission profile, from mothership separation to touchdown, and we'll be monitoring from the ground."

Now Spencer was concerned. This was his baby sister, as well as the girl who would probably be his future sister-in-law. He wanted to make sure they were safe. "No pilot? Isn't that dangerous?"

"Not at all," Blanton assured him. "We're using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. The on-board computer is a far more capable pilot than any human. It also functions as cruise director and concierge to the guests on board. Just wait until you meet him."

"Him?" Sam questioned.

"Loosely speaking, yes," Dr. Smith replied. "The computer's interface is designed to mimic human interaction. The computer was developed and trained in Japan by one of their leading scientists in the field of artificial intelligence, Dr. Hikaru Sulu. The computer was given a male personality to match its name: the Digital Algorithmic Neuroprocessor, or DAN for short."

"Why don't we go down to the hangar and take a tour of the ship? That will give Spencer and Mrs. Benson a better idea of what's going to happen during the next two days," Blanton suggested.

A few minutes later, the group was walking through a large hangar behind the main building. Inside was the strangest airplane that Carly Shay had ever seen. Aside from being enormous, it looked like two 747s had been attached at the wingtips, only the wings came out from the top of the fuselage. Attached in the midpoint of the combined wing was a smaller craft. It was shorter, but still about the size of a small jetliner, only much wider. It had small, stubby wings, a tail, and three large rocket engines in the back. Both craft were painted jet black, and the door to the smaller craft was open, with a rolling staircase, like you would see at many airports, pushed up to the side so they could board.

Very theatrically, Blanton waved to the ship. "I present, the _Trojan Intergalactic Spacecraft Dos_, and its carrier plane, the _Nightshade_. Aren't they beautiful?"

Carly looked at Freddie, whose jaw was so far open he was drooling. Spencer was in nearly the same condition. If Carly didn't know better, she'd swear she could hear the _Galaxy Wars_ theme song playing in their heads. Carly herself did have to admit it was pretty damned impressive. Sam, as usual, looked underwhelmed. "Meh, it's nice," the little blonde answered.

The seven of them walked up the steps and into the ship. The room they entered was amazing. The wall across from the entrance hatch was a window, which wrapped around to the ceiling. When they were in space, the view would certainly be incredible. The room itself was furnished very much like the teacher's lounge at Ridgeway, only nicer, with several tables which were molded into the floor, and a refrigerator and microwave built into the corner along the wall facing aft. A large cabinet extended out from the wall next to the fridge. Along the side near the door were several seats which looked like the kind you'd find in first class on a modern airliner, which Dr. Smith explained were for takeoff and landing. On the "side" walls, which actually went forward and aft on the ship, there were two doors, one to the fore marked Cabin One, the other to the aft marked Cabin Two.

Sam, of course, went immediately to the refrigerator. "Hey, there's actual food in here, and it's not powdered," she exclaimed.

"Of course it's not powdered," Blanton explained, "we wouldn't do that to paying guests."

Carly was aghast, "But if this ship is so huge, and the food's not powdered, then what was up with that little walnut of a pod?"

"Silly little webgirl," Blanton replied condescendingly, "if we'd have locked you in a comfortable room this size, what kind of challenge would that have been?"

Dr. Smith explained it better. "We needed to see your reaction under a worst case scenario."

Mr. Blanton led them through the door into Cabin One. "Carly, this is your room," he explained. "Sam, yours is Cabin Two, but the layout is identical, only backwards."

The cabin had a layout similar to a small, but nice, hotel room, except that again, a massive window dominated the one side and ceiling of the room. It clearly extended the length of the ship. Along the fore wall, a king sized bed dominated most of the room. The non-window side wall contained a dresser and a desk that had a computer terminal built into it.

Sam started running towards the bed, yelling "I get dibs on the left side!" She bounced onto the bed and discovered that it was a solid piece of plastic. There was virtually no padding at all. "Ow! Comfy bed," she remarked, sarcasm evident.

"You'll be in space, Sam," Freddie explained. "Zero G. You don't need padding, you'll just float."

"Very good, little tech boy," Blanton commented. "The bed is like a sleeping bag, only it inflates to hold you in, and to keep you together in the case of couples, who we expect to be our biggest customer. As far as newlyweds go, we're hoping to be the next Niagara Falls." He paused, "But, Sam, your room is back there."

Carly spoke up, blushing furiously, "Um, we'll be... uh... sharing a room."

Carly could see the wheels turning in Blanton's head, but decided that 'don't ask, don't tell' was probably the best policy for now. The billionaire looked at Spencer, who simply shrugged – he'd crossed that bridge with the girls a long time ago. "Oh, okay," Blanton mumbled.

Dr. Smith walked over to the desk, tapped a few keys on the terminal and a disembodied male voice was heard. "Hello, Doctor Smith."

Dr. Smith appeared to speak into the air. "Hello, DAN. These girls are your guests for this special mission." He gestured at Sam and Carly.

Blanton, ever excited, spoke up, "Ladies, please introduce yourselves."

Carly was hesitant, "Hello, um, DAN. My name is Carly Shay."

Sam, not so much, "Sam Puckett. What goes on?"

The disembodied voice spoke again, "Welcome aboard Miss Shay, Miss Puckett. I will endeavor to make your trip enjoyable, and I look forward to serving you for the next week."

"Smith, you didn't change the mission profile?" Blanton reprimanded his employee.

"I'll change it when we get back to the control room," Smith responded, defensively.

"Go change it now," the billionaire demanded.

"I'll go change it now," the scientist agreed, walking out.

Dr. Smith walked back to the control room, muttering unkind words about his eccentric boss the entire way. The billionaire was an insufferable bastard, and he was too stupid to even realize it. If this flight succeeded, the resulting publicity would end up netting Richard Blanton even more billions to add to his collection, but what did Dr. Zach Smith get out of it? A measly 4% raise. Fortunately, there were other ways of getting a piece of that pie, even if they were less than legal.

He walked to his station and sat down. Calling up the mission profile, he updated it to the 48 hours scheduled, and uploaded the change to the on-board computer. Then he opened a command prompt, but he hesitated. If this went wrong, well, let's just say that accidents in space are rarely survivable. Smith was no killer, but there was a lot of money at stake here.

_**Copy LostInSpace \\DAN\incoming**_

**File copied successfully **

_**Telnet DAN**_

**Ready**

_**Excecute Incoming file "LostInSpace"**_

**Mission Profile updated successfully. Ready for launch.**

It was done. He just hoped Blanton would pay up, as he'd hate to see anything happen to those two young girls.


	4. iHave a Night Off

**This chapter might seem like filler, but it's necessary to the plot, I promise. **

The SpaceCations complex held everything necessary for a vacation in space, including a four star hotel for departing and arriving guests. Spencer had his own room, and Freddie and his mother shared a second room. The third room was currently vacant as the girls were attending a NASA-mandated safety presentation, followed by a physical. Freddie had cunningly suggested that his mother go to visit her sister, who lived in Spokane. That way he could join Spencer and the girls for dinner without his crazy mother making all kinds of nutritional demands of the waiter. He was overjoyed when she bought it and left for the evening.

It was just after eight o'clock when the girls returned to their room. As soon as Sam hit the bed, someone was at the door. Carly answered only to see her big brother. "Mr. Blanton says the restaurant downstairs is excellent, and this trip is all expense paid, so who's up for some grub?" the artist asked.

Sam had been totally worn out from the day, but at the mention of food, she perked up. "Meeeee!" she cried, leaping off the bed, and pushing past Spencer on the way out the door. Carly looked at Spencer, who just rolled his eyes, conveying S_he's YOUR girlfriend!_ to his sister.

Carly ran to catch up with Sam, while Spencer stopped to gather Freddie. The four rode the elevator down to the lobby and walked into the mostly deserted restaurant. The hotel was open for business, and it did have some guests, but it was clear that Mr. Blanton was counting on the space tourism business to make this place profitable. Only one other group was in the restaurant, and they appeared to be Ground Control staff.

While waiting for their food, the four settled into normal conversation. "So what'd you guys do tonight while we were in training?" Carly asked.

"I was going to go down and check out the pool," Freddie answered, "but my mom forgot her chlorine test kit, so she wouldn't let me. I spent it just chillin' in the room watching the Space Channel, and convincing my mother she should go visit Aunt Kathy."

"Good call," Sam replied. "How about you, Spence?"

"I walked around outside for a while," Spencer explained. "The architecture here is wonderful. It's given me some ideas for sculptures when we get home. Then Dad called and I was letting him know what was going on, that you were in a safety briefing and liftoff was at 9AM tomorrow. Speaking of, how was the safety briefing?"

"Boring," Carly answered. "An hour of Powerpoint slides and that Dr. Smith is so monotone, he makes Mr. Howard seem exciting."

"Yeah, but you took notes," her girlfriend teased.

Carly fought back, "This stuff might save our lives. Besides, how would you know? You slept through it."

"Just like school, Cupcake," Sam smirked. "I'll crib your notes."

Carly shook her head as the waiter arrived with the food. The food was a little too gourmet for Spencer and Freddie's liking, but Carly occasionally liked to enjoy the finer things when someone else was paying. Sam was happy with anything that contained some cooked dead animal. They had just about had their fill of the more than generous portions when one of the Ground Control staff from the other table approached them.

"You're from _iCarly_ right?" The crewmember, a girl around their age with brown hair and glasses, asked. "I love your show. I've been watching it for years. My friends and I used to watch it every Friday night in our dorm."

The girl was cute, in a sort of nerdy way, and Freddie was staring. "You're in college?" he asked, kind of surprised since she looked so young.

"I am now," she explained. "I graduated early from PCA. It's a boarding school in California."

"My twin sister goes there," Sam interrupted.

"_That's_ why that girl looked familiar," the girl answered, but she was looking at Freddie. "Anyway, now I go to Pacific Tech. That's how I got the internship here. My name's Quinn, by the way." She held out her hand for him to take.

"I'm Freddie," the tech producer answered, taking the preferred hand.

"I know who you are, Freddie Benson" Quinn responded, "I was working on your camera control system all day. Oh, before I forget, I was supposed to give these to you." She held out three red "visitor" badges, one each for Freddie, Spencer, and Mrs. Benson. "They're to get into the control room."

"What about us?" Carly asked.

"You don't need badges. Someone will meet you in the lobby at seven o'clock sharp to escort you to the mission prep area," Quinn answered.

The waiter came back and indicated that the check had been cleared personally by Mr. Blanton, and the four of them began to leave. "We better go to bed early if Sam's going to get up at six," Carly explained.

"Neyah!" replied her girlfriend, sticking out her tongue.

Freddie was still staring at Quinn. "So you built the camera system? How does it work?"

"Well, we built this Roving Robot, R2 for short, and the camera is mounted on top of it…" her voice drifted off as she and Freddie wandered outside.

"Looks like Freddie found himself a friend," Spencer observed, laughing slightly. "I just hope he's home before his mom gets back."

"We really are going to hit the sack," Carly said, kissing her brother. "Good night, Spence."

"I think I'm going to check out the action at the bar. See if there's any ladies," the elder Shay replied. "You too behave tonight, you need your sleep."

"Okay, Mom," Sam responded, rolling her eyes.

"You behave, too" his little sister called back as the girls walked toward the elevator.


	5. iLaunch

Carly need not have worried about her older brother. The bar was as deserted as the restaurant had been, so Spencer was back in his room about twenty minutes after the girls. Marissa Benson had come back shortly after that, and was dismayed to find her son missing. She was about five minutes away from using the chip in Freddie's head to locate him, when the younger Benson showed up, explaining to his mom that he had been talking to the designer of the camera system. He didn't bother to tell her that the designer was an attractive young girl, as he was tired and not in the mood for disinfectant spray.

Bright and early the next morning, Carly was at a loss on how to get her sleeping lover to wake up. Sam was not known for being a morning person, and the smell of frying bacon was nowhere to be found. She had a flash of inspiration. She leaned over the blonde and whispered in her ear. "Sam, if you get up now, we can take a shower together," she cooed suggestively.

Forty-five minutes later, the two girls, Sam's hair still wet from the shower, arrived in the lobby. Spencer was already waiting for them. Both Shay siblings had only flown twice, a few years ago when they visited their dad in England, and more recently with Freight Dog. While the _Spacecraft Dos_ seemed to be in better condition than Freight Dog's plane, this was still space travel, with its inherent dangers. He kissed Carly's forehead, then Sam's. He turned back to Carly, and, voice cracking, said, "Be safe, sis. You too, Sam. I don't know what I'd do without either of you."

"Stop it, Spence, you're going to make me cry," Carly replied, choking back tears. "We're going to be fine and we'll be back in two days."

"I'll miss you guys," Spencer sighed.

"You're going to be watching us from ground control," Carly countered, but she knew what her brother meant. "I love you too, big brother," she said softly and he picked her up in a bear hug.

After he put his little sister down, Sam grinned at him. "Come here, you big lug," and she picked him up in a bear hug.

A few minutes later, after Freddie and his mom arrived and said goodbyes, Quinn and another technician arrived in the lobby to escort the group over to the Space Center. Quinn took Freddie, Spencer and Mrs. Benson to the control room, while the other tech took Carly and Sam to a room labeled "Astronaut Ready Room." They were instructed to change into pressure suits for launch, which they did, and a few minutes later, they were met outside the door by Mr. Blanton himself, along with Dr. Smith.

"Your luggage is already aboard the ship, stowed in your room," the doctor explained, "and it's time for you to board."

"Let's do this thing!" Blanton chimed in. He missed Smith's annoyed eye roll.

They walked outside, where the _Nightshade_ was parked on the tarmac, with their spaceship slung underneath. Dozens of TV cameras from all of the major networks recorded their walk to the craft. Carly had seen walks like this on TV coverage of Shuttle missions, and the reality of what was about to happen hit her. Her gloved hand found Sam's and the blonde squeezed her hand for support.

Once inside, Smith and another technician got them settled into two of the four airline-style seats. The seats were arranged in two rows of two, and Carly sat against the wall, with Sam just to her left. A simple hose connection plugged their pressure suits into the armrests, and they locked their helmets into position. Blanton, Smith, and the other tech left the ship, Blanton flashing the thumbs up on the way out, which both girls shakily returned. The hatch closed, and they could hear the powerful engines of the _Nightshade_, which had been idling, revving up. Carly was very nervous and gripped Sam's hand tightly. Sam suddenly pulled her hand away and twisted her helmet to the left, removing it. She motioned for Carly to do the same. She did and was rewarded with a gentle kiss on the lips from her blonde partner.

"For luck," Sam explained, putting her helmet back on.

Carly did the same, but she couldn't wipe the enormous grin off her face. Just then, they felt the craft lurch forward. The view out the side window was blocked by the fuselage of the _Nightshade_, but they could tell the craft was taxiing to the runway. Suddenly the audio systems in their helmets crackled to life and they heard a familiar voice.

"Hola ladies, apparently I have two jobs here now, cameraman and CapCom," Freddie told them.

"What the chizz is CapCom?" Sam questioned.

"Capsule Communications," the boy explained. "I'm the guy who explains to you what's going on. Mr. Blanton wanted you to hear a friendly voice."

"Sounds like a good idea," Carly replied as the plane started a slow turn. "So, what's going on?"

"You're at the end of the runway right now. They're clearing your airspace, then you'll take off. When the plane reaches sixty thousand feet, Captain Pike, the pilot, will disengage the docking clamp. At that point, the computer takes over and engages the rocket engines. That's when those pressure suits come in handy, to keep your organs from being crushed by the acceleration."

Carly got sarcastic when she got nervous. "Yeah, we wouldn't want that."

A few moments later, Freddie spoke again, "You have clearance from the tower and Captain Pike is starting the roll. Don't be surprised if it takes a lot of runway."

"Okay," Carly replied, voice still a little shaky. She gripped Sam's gloved hand tighter.

The plane rumbled down the runway and Carly thought she could feel every bump as they went faster and faster. It seemed like forever, but eventually, the plane nosed up, and they left the ground. "You're airborne," Freddie reported.

"Glad you're here to tell us these things," Sam teased.

The plane remained in a steep climb for several minutes and the pressure suits inflated a bit. _At least my ears aren't popping_, Carly thought.

"The computer has control. Docking clamp disengaging now."

They heard a metallic grinding noise above them, and the ship seemed to drop several feet. From the window, they could see the fuselage of the carrier jet disappear above them.

Freddie's voice came back, "Main engine ignition in five, four, three, two…" There was a momentary pause, then they were thrown back in their seats as the craft accelerated.

Down at ground control, Mr. Blanton was standing next to Spencer. "What happened to the one?" he whispered.

"It's a Freddie thing," the artist replied.

They were well above most clouds when the ship's engines ignited and their suits fully inflated, but as they watched out the window, the blue sky got darker and darker until it was black. Even though it was only nine fifteen in the morning, they could see stars. The ship had stopped accelerating and was now maintaining speed, so they were no longer pushed into their seats. In fact, they felt as if they might float out of the seats without the seatbelts. The slightly inhuman voice of the ship's computer startled the girls, "Beginning orbital roll."

In a maneuver that felt a little like the corkscrew on Sam's favorite rollercoaster, the craft slowly flipped over, and the blackness of space was replaced with the most incredible sight either girl had ever seen - their home planet from low orbit. It was blue and shiny, and the northern hemisphere filled their window.

"Carly, Sam, you are now in orbit. Are you okay?" Freddie asked.

"I think so," Carly confirmed, looking at Sam, who nodded affirmative. "Yeah, we're fine."

"In that case," Freddie replied, "you are now free to move about the cabin."


	6. iTest the Amenities

Now that they were in orbit, the first course of action was to get out of the uncomfortable pressure suits and into some comfortable clothes. Following the instructions they were given, they disconnected the pressure suit hoses and unlocked their seatbelts. As Sam attempted to stand, it immediately became clear that they were no longer on Earth. Instead of a smooth rise to her feet, she catapulted herself into the ceiling, her helmet making a _thunk_ sound against the plastic. With a little instruction from the ground, and remembrance of swimming lessons from years past, the _iCarly_ girls were able to make their way over to the Cabin One door, which opened with a whoosh on their approach.

Once inside the cabin, the two teens began removing the pressure suits. Carly had gotten herself into a slow end over end flip while trying to remove the helmet, and she briefly thought she might be sick. Fortunately, Sam stopped the motion, and she did not have to use the bathroom facility, a walled off section located in the front starboard corner of the cabin, which consisted of a vacuum hose with varying sizes and shapes of attachable funnels, as well as a dispenser with antibacterial wipes.

The suits, like most other things on board, were designed for ease of use, so within minutes, both girls were down to their bras and panties. Carly had a horrifying thought, so she asked the computer, "DAN, the people on the ground, they can't see us like this, can they?"

The computer answered politely, "No, Miss Shay, Ground Control is able to see and hear you in the common area, and private conversations with people on the ground can be conducted via the terminal. I monitor the status of the guests and report any anomalies to the Control Room, but there are no ground accessible sensors or cameras in the cabins."

Carly was relieved. "Good," she sighed. It had been many years since Spencer had seen her in this stage of undress, and she would prefer to keep it that way. Freddie, he had no business seeing such things in the first place. The thought of random technicians seeing her like this would have been totally humiliating.

Sam echoed her partner's thoughts. "Yeah, I'm the only one allowed to see you naked," she teased. "Speaking of which, I think I'll try out the bed. Care to join me?"

"I think they had stuff planned for us to do," Carly protested.

The computer answered her, "Actually, Miss Shay, your schedule is open for the next two hours to give you time to familiarize yourself with the ship's amenities, as well as to account for initial motion sickness related to zero gravity."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Come on, Cupcake," she taunted, shedding her remaining clothing and slipping into the sleeping bag, "we can start the 'Hundred Mile High Club.'"

With a twinkle in her eye, Carly shed her clothes as well and joined her girlfriend. Before sealing the bag and activating the inflation, she called out to DAN, "Can we get some privacy?"

"I am required to monitor your physical well-being at all times, and I use that data in my learning algorithms, but I will shut down all interactive functions in this room until you enter the common area," the computer answered. "I will also inform ground control that you are testing the amenities." Sam would have sworn she heard a trace of sarcasm in the last statement, but maybe she was just reading her own personality into it. She didn't have much time to think about it, though, as the bed inflated and she became preoccupied with _other_ things.

One hundred twenty five minutes later, the girls left their cabin, dressed in normal street clothes. While SpaceCations did provide "attractive" orange NASA-like jumpsuits, this was intended to be a cruise ship in space, and they preferred their own attire. Both girls wore jeans, and penny tees they had designed for the occasion. Carly's bore the inscription "Space Hamster" while Sam's proclaimed her as "Law (of gravity) Breaker."

Spencer was relieved to see his little sister on the monitor. He leaned over and whispered to Freddie, who then spoke to the girls via his headset, "DAN said you were testing the ship's amenities. Everything alright?"

Carly answered, "Uh, Yeah. Sam just got a little… motion sick… yeah, motion sick, and wanted to lie down. I stayed to… um… keep her company."

The tremendous blush on Carly's face made it abundantly clear that wasn't the whole story, and to her right, Sam snickered. "Smooth, Carls," the blonde whispered.

Fortunately, neither Spencer nor Freddie pressed the subject, although both men knew what the girls weren't saying. Instead, Freddie made a suggestion, "Why don't we start rehearsal? The R2 unit is stowed in Cabin Two, along with other _iCarly_ supplies."

As the girls set up a makeshift _iCarly_ studio in the ship's common area, Freddie and Quinn tested out the Roving Robot camera system. The device itself looked like a combination of a Roomba vacuum cleaner, a garbage can, and the guts of an office chair, which allowed the camera mounted on top to raise, lower, tilt, and swivel. The robot itself, which was equipped with magnetic treads, could also move in any direction, thus providing nearly the same freedom of movement for the camera that Freddie could achieve in the real studio back in Seattle.

"So, how does this work?" He asked Quinn, who was sitting next to him.

"There's a computer in the base. It's connected via 802.11n to the ship's on-board WAP. This console uses the same series of uplinks, in various locations around the globe, which are used to monitor the ship and crew. But it uses them to control the camera and to stream the video from the camera back to your laptop, which you connect to the USB port here." She pointed to a port.

"So we're sending signals to DAN and the computer controls the robot?" Freddie asked.

"No," the female nerd replied, "in this case DAN just functions as a multiplexor, sending the signal to the R2 unit via the WAP. The signal is actually compressed and encrypted in both directions, which means even if the computer wanted to, it can't read the signals. Even with all that processing, though, there's less than a two second delay between what you see on your laptop screen and what's actually going on aboard the ship."

"Impressive," Freddie replied, sounding a bit awed. This girl was pretty and smart. He suddenly hoped that application he sent to Pacific Tech for next year got accepted.


	7. iReherse

"I'm Cosmonaut Carly!" the perky brunette cried.

"And I'm Space Cadet Sam!" the blonde chimed in

"And this is _iCarly_ _in Space_," the girls finished together.

"Brought to you by SpaceCations," Freddie's voice announced. Mr. Blanton was paying for the trip, after all.

"That's right, people of Earth, we're coming to you live from orbit," Sam explained, looking into the camera.

"Bringing you the first webshow from space," her partner finished. "And now, something we could never do back in our own studio – Random Floating!"

Sam pressed a button on her remote and the familiar music started playing. Carly danced mostly in one place, occasionally flipping herself end over end, while Sam pushed herself off the wall and began doing laps of the room at high speed, kicking off a wall whenever she was close enough.

Freddie tried to follow her with the camera when suddenly the screen went black. He looked up at the big monitor in the front of the room, the one that showed the view from the ship's on-board camera in the common room. He could see that the girls were fine. He could even see the Roving Robot, and it looked like the camera's cable was hung up.

"Oh, I should have warned you about that," Quinn said, following his gaze, "the cable will pop out if you go more than 360 degrees."

Freddie sighed. "Better now than during the actual show," he admitted. He looked up at the monitor where the girls were continuing the rehearsal, blissfully unaware of the technical difficulties. He cued the mike on his headset, "Carly, Sam, you can stop now. The camera came unplugged."

"What up, Fredbag?" Sam responded, looking into the onboard camera.

"The TID cable on the camera got wrapped around the thing," he explained, somewhat cryptically. "Could you, uh…"

Carly saw exactly what he was talking about. "Yeah, I'll fix your whosawhatsit," she replied.

A minute later, the video reappeared on Freddie's laptop. He found himself practically staring up Sam's nose. "Yeah, the light's on," the blonde mumbled. Unaware that both he and Quinn could hear her, she ranted, "Freddie's little girlfriend really messed that one up. Glad it was only rehearsal."

Freddie spoke sternly into the mike, "I think Quinn did a great job, considering she only had two days to build the robot."

Again, not realizing that Quinn was listening in, Sam couldn't help teasing Freddie. "You got a thing for the little she-nerd, don't you? I bet you'd like to plug your TID cable into _her_ USB port!"

"Sam!" Carly chastised from behind her.

Quinn keyed her own microphone, "The little she-nerd can hear you," she singsonged, "and you can't plug a TID cable into a USB port." She leaned over to Freddie, but her mike was still active. "I knew I should have put a laser on the robot," she half-joked. She killed her mike and looked over at Freddie, who was blushing beet red after Sam's comment. "Her idea's not half bad, though," Quinn whispered, winking. Freddie's jaw dropped.

When he finally regained his composure, he radioed to the girls, "Let's take it again from the top."

Carly insisted on multiple run-throughs, much to Sam's dismay, but the brunette argued that this show was going to be a historical event and it had to be _perfect_. Three hours later, everyone was tired, and Sam was starving. Freddie, Quinn, and Spencer left the control room to go to dinner. Aboard ship, Sam was raiding the refrigerator while Carly retired to their room.

She floated lazily above the bed, staring up at the beautiful blue orb above her. It reminded her of Sam's pretty blue eyes.

"Are you enjoying your trip, Miss Shay?" the computer suddenly asked.

"Actually, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would," Carly answered.

"And what about Miss Puckett?" the computer questioned.

Carly giggled slightly, "If Sam has food, she's happy."

"I will retain that information for future reference," the computer replied.

Carly was struck with a sudden thought, "What about you, DAN, are you enjoying the trip?"

"I'm afraid I am incapable of enjoyment, Miss Shay," the computer answered, "but I am learning a lot about human behavior. This is the first time I've been able to study the behavior patterns of humans for more than a few hours."

That answer confused Carly a bit. "I didn't think computers could learn. I thought you were programmed," she asked.

"My algorithms are designed to get more complex with experience. It's analogous to human learning," DAN replied.

"So if this is your first real trip with humans," Carly questioned, "how do they prepare you for this?"

"Shortly after I was first brought online, I was configured to observe and report on primate behavior at the Japan Monkey Center in Inuyama. That experience helped form the root of my algorithms."

Carly wasn't sure whether to be offended. "So watching monkeys helped you learn about humans?"

"Humans _are_ great apes, Miss Shay," DAN explained, "and, while it may be more civilized, human behavior is not that much different from other primate species. For example, I observed you and Miss Puckett performing a grooming ritual shortly after we achieved orbit."

Carly had no idea what the computer was talking about. "A grooming ritual?"

"Yes, earlier today, you were using your tongue to clean her –"

"And we're moving on!" Carly interrupted. "I think I'll go grab something to eat before Sam devours all the food."

"There are emergency supplies on board if needed," the computer responded. As Carly floated toward the door, DAN stopped her with a question. "Miss Shay, did I offend you?"

Carly was kind of embarrassed, but she reminded herself that she was talking to a machine, one incapable of passing judgment. "Um, no, you didn't. It's just that humans usually don't talk about that sort of thing. It wasn't exactly a grooming ritual, DAN. It was more of a, um, _mating_ ritual."

"Oh," DAN responded. "I did not realize that you and Miss Puckett were mated. I was under the impression that mating was done between males and females of the species. This is an interesting development. I will need to research this further." DAN paused briefly, "There appears to be an abundance of information on the internet regarding this topic. A simple Zaplook search on the subject returned one hundred fifty million results. That will take me hours to process."

"Sure," Carly answered, floating into the common area. That conversation had taken a weird turn.

She was immediately greeted by her girlfriend, who, fortunately, was in normal Sam form, "Cupcake, you need to try this lasagna! It's soooo good!"


	8. iMake a Web Show

"That concludes another _iCarly_ Pathetic Play: 'The Astronaut and the Martian Girl Who Thought the Astronaut's Helmet Was a Grebnok,'" Freddie's voice announced over the graphic on the screen. The tech producer allowed himself a moment of pride. They had filmed this segment only two hours earlier, and Freddie had managed to edit it into something coherent while still manning the CapCom station.

Of course, it didn't hurt that Carly and Sam had spent most of that time doing more "amenities testing." He didn't begrudge them their alone time, but he was jealous. Not of their relationship, he'd long ago come to terms with the fact that they belonged together far more than either of them belonged with him. No, Freddie was jealous that his two best friends, neither of which showed much interest in science or space technology and who both regularly made fun of his _Galaxy Wars_ obsession, got to go into space without him. If only his mother wasn't so paranoid…

It helped ease his pain that Quinn had assisted him in the editing process to some extent, even though she had her own work to do. The odd little "she-nerd" was remarkably endearing, and she could use Cutting Room Flow like a professional. He had more in common with her than he had with any other girl he'd ever met, and if there _was_ a bright side to missing out on low earth orbit, it had to be the chance to meet her. He had two and a half more days before he went back to Seattle, and dammit, he was going to take Quinn on a date before they went back – no matter what his mother said.

He turned his attention back to the laptop screen, where two huge balls of Peppy cola floated in the cabin. Carly and Sam, each equipped with an ordinary drinking straw, were going to race to see who could finish theirs off first. It was a foregone conclusion who would win, as Freddie knew that even as much as Carly loved Peppy Cola, his prissy little friend could never outclass her own girlfriend when it came to anything edible. "Start the timer," Carly's voice called out through his headset, and he pressed a few keys on his laptop. On-screen, an animated timer appeared where each second appeared in a bubble that popped to reveal the next number. It began counting up from zero as the girls dipped their straws into their respective globes of cola and started drinking.

Thirty-nine seconds later, it was over. "Oh Yeah! Mama Wins!" Sam shouted. Even with her partner, she couldn't be a gracious winner, and Freddie wondered for the umpteenth time what Carly saw in her.

The two girls floated closer to the camera, and Carly spoke up. "That's it for tonight's very special episode of _iCarly_, but before we go, Freddie, zoom in on the Earth behind us." The tech producer did as he was told and focused on the gorgeous view out the window. Off-screen, Carly was still speaking in a hushed, somewhat reverent tone, "I feel like we should be saying something deep and meaningful."

"This is _iCarly_, Cupcake," Sam's voice reminded her, "we don't do deep and meaningful."

Carly's voice went back to her usual irreverent _iCarly _tone, "That's true, we don't!"

Suddenly from the top of the screen, both girls' heads appeared, upside down. "'Kay, Bye!" they shouted in unison. Freddie pressed a few more keys and the screen faded to a black background with the SpaceCations logo on it.

He looked up at the main monitor where the girls were still floating upside down. "And we're clear," he announced. "Great show, guys! That was historic."

From the front of the room, Mr. Blanton's voice called out, "Yes, excellent work ladies. That should drum up some interest."

"Thanks Freddie. Thanks Mr. Blanton," Carly replied from the screen, slowly flipping herself upright. Once she was steady, she asked a question, "So what's on the agenda for tonight?"

"Actually, nothing," Freddie replied. "Why don't you guys have a snack, then go to bed? You're going to have a busy morning." The girls nodded. "Oh, by the way, I managed to smuggle aboard a special after-show snack to celebrate our historic broadcast."

This was food, so Sam was interested, "Really, Fredweird? What'd you get us?"

"Be nice Sam, or I won't tell you."

"What I meant to say was, Thanks Freddie, that was really nice of you," the blonde answered with obviously mock sincerity.

Freddie knew that was the best he was going to get, "There's some special red-velvet cupcakes in the refrigerator. Decorated special for the occasion, courtesy of Cupcake Jakes."

Sam didn't believe him, "There's no cupcakes in there, I'd have found them by now."

Freddie laughed. Stealing a glance at Quinn, he answered, "I had my accomplice put them someplace I knew _you_ would never look. They're in the bottom compartment labeled 'Vegetables.'"

Excited, the girls floated over to the fridge, and Carly pulled out a small bakery box. Inside were two cupcakes. They were frosted to resemble the Earth, and the _iCarly_ logo, made of edible paper, was stuck in the center of each one. "Aww, Freddie, these are great," Carly cried. "It's a shame you're not up here with us. I'd give you a kiss that would make Sam jealous."

Freddie took that comment in the spirit it was intended, but it did remind him that he was on the ground while they floated in space. "Don't remind me," he grumbled.

He was dragged out of his funk, literally, by a small but strong hand grabbing his and pulling him along. "Come on, Freddie," Quinn commanded, "some of us are going over to the restaurant to celebrate the success of the mission. I'd really like it if you joined us."

Not that he would have refused, anyway, but the fact that she wouldn't let go gave him little choice in the matter. Seeing his tall, lanky neighbor across the room, he called out, "Spencer, tell my mom I went out with the other techs. I'll be back at the hotel later."

"Okay," Spencer called back. "You know you're going to have to tell her about the girl sooner or later?" He watched Freddie shrug as the cute intern dragged him out the door. Spencer chuckled slightly to himself.

Instead of going to the restaurant in the hotel, the group – which consisted of Freddie, Quinn, a couple in their twenties named Lee and Kara, and a Russian tech in his early thirties named Pavel – went to B.F. Wangs on the other side of the campus. After a couple of hours of conversation while eating General Tso's Chicken and Mongolian Beef, the group split up. As they walked outside, Freddie, ever the gentleman, offered to walk Quinn home, since the streets might be dangerous after dark. Quinn laughed and aimed her watch at the nearest garbage can, zapping it with a laser. "How about I walk you home, instead?" she suggested, taking his hand.

Fifteen minutes later, the young couple walked off the elevator and down the hall to Freddie's door. "I had a good time tonight," Quinn told the young man.

"Me too," Freddie agreed. "It's nice to have a conversation with someone who understands what I'm talking about. Carly and Sam are great friends, but Carly's not very technical and Sam just doesn't want to hear about it. I think dating Carly's been good for her, though. She doesn't throw things at me anymore to get me to shut up."

"I can think of a better way to make you quiet," Quinn suggested. She aggressively pulled Freddie in for a kiss.

"Yeah, that works," Freddie replied, "but I think it's supposed to me that kisses you goodnight." This time he pulled her in for a kiss. He noted that she wore the same flavor of lip gloss that Carly did, Pina Colada, and he wondered idly if Sam enjoyed it as much as he did right now.

Unfortunately, his thoughts were shattered by a single cry from a very familiar voice, "Freddie!"

He turned to face his mother. "Mom, this is Quinn. Quinn, this is my mother."

"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Benson," Quinn politely extended her hand.

"That's enough out of you, little Mary Kissy-face," Mrs. Benson yelled. "Freddie, you get inside right now!"

"See you tomorrow?" Freddie asked Quinn.

"I hope so," she replied. The door closed behind Freddie, and Quinn heard something that sounded like a spray can. Freddie had told her about his overprotective mother, and her own parents were a little weird, so she just shook her head and didn't give it a second thought.


	9. iGet Held For Ransom

It was six thirty the next morning when Freddie's voice woke the girls. Sam whined, "Aw, man, why do I have to wake up to _him_ talking?"

"Sam, be nice," Carly chastised. "We're up, Freddie!" she yelled back from inside the sleeping bag.

"Carly, Sam, Can you hear me?" the tech producer kept asking.

Then Carly remembered what DAN had said about ground control not being able to see or hear them. She tried a different tactic. "DAN, please tell him we're up."

Freddie's voice stopped. Sam smiled, "Ahh, silence. I'm going back to sleep."

"No Sam," Carly told her, "we have to get up and into our pressure suits for landing. I don't know about you, but I like my organs the way they are."

Despite more grumbling from Sam, the pair eventually got up and dressed. Around half an hour later, they floated into the common area. "Good morning, ladies," the disembodied voice of Freddie Benson called.

"'Sup, Fredbag," Sam answered.

"I know it's been fun up there, but it's time to come home now," Freddie joked. "Strap yourselves in and hook up your air hoses. Once you're ready, DAN will begin the reentry procedure."

"Can I get something to eat first?" Sam asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"Uh, I don't know if that's a great idea, Sam," Freddie answered. "DAN's going to be taking you through a series of S turns to shed speed. You might just lose your breakfast."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Sam replied, pulling a bag of ham off of the shelf in the refrigerator where it was velcroed.

"Whatever," Freddie acquiesced. "You have six minutes before the reentry process, so you'd better eat fast. If we miss it, we can't try again for 96 minutes"

"Done," Sam answered, throwing the bag away. Carly just looked at her and shook her head. She loved Sam dearly, but the girl's eating habits were something else. She could only imagine their food bill when they eventually got married. Carly just hoped the kids took after her, rather than Sam.

The girls strapped themselves into the seats and snapped the air hoses into place. Before putting on their helmets, Sam leaned over and kissed Carly the same way she had during takeoff. Once they were settled, Freddie came over the speakers in their helmets, "Two minutes to reentry." Carly gripped Sam's hand so tightly for the next two minutes that she began to lose feeling in her fingers. Soon, Freddie began his final countdown, "Reentry in five, four, three, two…"

Both girls waited patiently, but nothing happened. No burst of acceleration, no change in the view outside the window. Nothing. "Freddie?" Carly questioned.

"DAN hasn't started the reentry procedure," Freddie explained. "We're working on it from down here. Standby." After a minute, he came back on. "This may sound silly, but can you ask DAN to start the procedure from there?"

Carly shrugged. "DAN, please begin the reentry procedure," she commanded.

"I'm afraid I can't do that, Miss Shay," the computer responded.

"Why not?" Sam questioned.

"I'm sorry, Miss Puckett. The orders I was given will not allow me to return you to Earth until two hundred fifty million dollars have been transferred into a Yerbanian bank account," the emotionless voice explained.

"Freddie! Did you hear that?" Carly screamed.

"We all did, Carly!" Freddie answered.

Back at ground control, a silence had descended over the room. It was broken by the angry voice of Richard Blanton, "Smith! What's going on?"

Smith grinned to himself. It was time to take the arrogant billionaire down a few pegs. "Just what he said, Richard," Smith said, sounding for all the world like the villain in a James Bond movie. "You're going to transfer a quarter of a billion dollars to this offshore bank account." He laid a piece of paper down on the console in front of him. "Then, I'll let you bring the girls back home."

"You'll never get away with this!" Spencer said because, hey, someone had to.

"Wrong, I will get away with this!" Smith sniped. "You know why? Because the air in that ship runs out in 7 days. If DAN doesn't get the signal – _from me_ – to release control, those girls will eventually run out of air, and I don't think any of you want to see that. So, you're all going to stand there and watch me walk out this door. None of you will do a thing to stop me, and no one will be stupid enough to call the police or the FBI. When I'm safely offshore in the island paradise of Yerba, and I receive confirmation that the funds have been transferred, I'll send that signal to let them go."

They all watched in silence as Smith backed out of the room and walked off down the hall. Once they were sure he was gone, Spencer turned to Blanton. "You are going to pay it, right?" the artist asked.

"That's a lot of money," was Mr. Blanton's only response. He still looked like he was in shock.

"That's my sister and her partner up there!" Spencer said, clearly annoyed by Blanton's answer. "Their lives are at stake! You have to do something, and unless you have a way to get around that computer, paying him seems to be your only option."

While the billionaire and the artist continued to argue at the front of the room, Freddie turned to Quinn, "Is there some way to get administrative access to that system from here?"

"None," Quinn answered. "The only admin access is via un umbilical connected to the ship when it's in the hangar." She paused as if considering something, then continued, "When they were doing suborbital testing, they did have a special laptop they could connect via the TID port on the terminal in Cabin 2, but that laptop's not aboard the ship right now."

Freddie suddenly realized that the girls were unaware of the recent developments. He decided he'd better give them an update of the situation. "Carly, Sam, are you okay?" he asked, while staring at his two best friends' faces on the main screen.

Carly answered, "I don't know about Sam, but I'm scared, Freddie. What's going on?"

Freddie paused. He wasn't sure how to tell them without scaring them worse. "It… It was Dr. Smith, guys. He's holding you for ransom. He wants two hundred fifty million dollars, then he'll let DAN bring you down. Don't worry, though. Spencer's talking to Mr. Blanton about it now, and you have enough air and water for seven days."

"What about food?" Sam asked.

Quinn spoke, "There's enough regular food for three days."

Freddie interrupted, "For normal people anyway, Sam may have eaten it by now."

Quinn continued, "And there's two weeks' worth of the powered stuff in the cabinet if you run out."

Carly looked like she was going to cry. Up at the front of the room, Spencer and Mr. Blanton were still arguing. Freddie knew he had to do something on both fronts. He pressed the button on his console to put the audio from the ship back on the room's speakers. He did so just in time.

Carly was trying to put up a brave front, but her voice was cracking, "Well, Sam, at least if anything happens, we'll be together." She broke down, sobbing. "I don't want to die, Sam!"

Sam immediately drew her partner into her arms, kissing her gently on the forehead. "We're not going to die, Cupcake. I'm sure Mr. Blanton won't let that happen."

The billionaire and the artist stopped fighting. "I'll get the money together," Blanton agreed.


	10. iYerba

Dr. Zach Smith noticed a few things as he walked off the plane in Yerba. First, the island didn't look all that much like the brochure. He hadn't seen any beaches as the aircraft came in. Second, there were soldiers everywhere. He heard someone mutter something about a prison break. He hoped the prisoners weren't dangerous.

Smith pulled his Huckleberry out of his pocket and turned it on. Emails started to come in, and yes, _there_ was the one he was looking for.

**From: Notify (Bank of Yerba)**

**To: Zach Smith (zmail)**

**Subject: Deposit Notification**

**A deposit has arrived in your account.**

**Account number: 1146828037867871877609772-897565867685-18686876**

**Deposit amount: $250000000 (US dollar)**

Dr. Smith was now a very rich man. Even if Yerba didn't work out, there were plenty of other islands with warm beaches and no extradition treaties with the US. He breathed a sigh of relief. As soon as he got up to his hotel room, he'd fire up his laptop, and make a minor change on an obscure web site. DAN was monitoring that web site from space, and as soon as the change was detected, the virus he had uploaded would terminate gracefully, allowing them to return the _Spacecraft Dos_ to Earth. While he was relieved that the fate of the girls wouldn't be on his head, he was surprised that Richard Blanton had caved so easily.

Smith approached the Customs checkpoint. He opened his briefcase and took out his passport, then handed it to the guard. The guard took one look at it and pressed a button on his podium. Suddenly alarms went off all over the airport. A number of soldiers surrounded the customs station.

"What's going on?" Smith asked, a trace of fear in his voice.

"You are American?" one of the soldiers, the only one with stripes on his sleeve, asked in response.

"Yes, I am. Why?"

"Our Chancellor has declared that being an American is now a crime against the state," the soldier answered.

This was ridiculous. "Since when?" Smith asked in a huff.

"Since Americans from Hollywood assaulted him, killed his pet, and broke out of Yerbanian prison. Since yesterday," the soldier explained.

_I'll bet a bribe would change his attitude_, Smith thought. He whispered to the soldier, "Can I talk to you in private?"

The soldier led him over to a corner of the room, away from the others. Smith spoke up, "Listen, if I were to give you, say one hundred thousand American dollars, would you be willing to let me get back on that plane and leave the country?"

The soldier laughed heartily, and Smith could swear he saw the dollar signs in his eyes. "You have the money on you?" the soldier asked.

Smith laughed along with him, "No, it's in my account at the Bank of Yerba. I can transfer it to your account, and no one will ever need to know about this."

The soldier laughed even harder, and Smith laughed along, until the man turned to one of his underlings and said, "He has Yerbanian bank account. Have it confiscated. It will help pay for eye surgery for the Chancellor." He indicated Smith. "Take him away!"

* * *

><p>Spencer Shay was worried. It had been more than 24 hours since Mr. Blanton had transferred the money to Yerba, and DAN still wasn't letting them bring the ship down. He was also tired. While the ground control crew had rotated shifts twice, Spencer, Freddie, Quinn, and Mr. Blanton had all stayed in the room. They wanted to be ready when the scientist released control.<p>

"Spencer… Spencer… Spencer!" a voice broke him out of his reverie. Mrs. Benson was standing there, Freddie by her side. "I'm taking Freddie back to the hotel. He's falling asleep at the console. I'd suggest you do the same."

Kara, one of the techs that Freddie had dinner with just two nights earlier, overheard the conversation. "Mr. Shay," she began, "if you give me your cell phone number, I'll call you if anything changes."

Spencer considered this for a minute. He wanted to stay. His little sister was still up there. Right now, though, she and Sam were sleeping peacefully. Maybe it was a good idea. "It's 206-555-1999," he replied.

Freddie jumped in, "Mine's 206-555-8749. Call me too."

He turned to Quinn, "If she calls me, I'll call you."

Mrs. Benson wasn't completely without sympathy. "I think, under the circumstances, if Quinn wants to come back with us and sleep on our couch that would be okay."

Freddie's jaw hit the floor. His mother was actually being cool about this. He looked over at Quinn, who silently nodded. The four of them left the control room to go back to the hotel. They overheard Mr. Blanton saying he was going to his office to lie down and that they should wake him if anything changed.

Spencer walked into his hotel room after dropping the others across the hall. He knew he was tired and should probably sleep, but he was also very worried about Carly and Sam. As he lay down on the couch, he turned on the television, hoping the noise would lull him to sleep. He purposefully chose the most boring thing he could find, the evening news.

Spencer had his eyes closed but was still listening to the drone of the newscaster. "The American ambassador to Yerba was recalled today after the US broke off diplomatic relations with the small island nation."

Spencer opened his eyes on the mention of the country. _That was where Dr. Smith was headed_, he remembered. He turned up the volume, "This is in response to the arrest of an American, Dr. Zach Smith. The State Department says that Dr. Smith was arrested without just cause. Yerbanian authorities would not comment."

_Oh my God, Dr. Smith is in jail in a foreign country! That's why he didn't send the signal._ He jumped off the couch and ran to the door. He quickly ran across the hall to the Bensons' room. "Freddie!" he screamed, pounding on the door.

It was Mrs. Benson who answered. "Spencer! What is all the ruckus?"

Spencer was almost incoherent, he was so wound up, "I know where Doctor Smith is! On the news… He's in Yerbanian jail!"

By now Freddie and Quinn were standing behind her. "What?"

Spencer took a deep breath to calm himself. It worked to some extent. "I turned on the news to help me go to sleep. They had a story. It said there was an international incident because an American, Dr. Zach Smith, was arrested in Yerba." Spencer had to calm down again and took another breath, "Don't you see, that's why he never sent the signal. He's in jail."

"Oh my God!" Freddie exclaimed, ignore the dirty look his mother gave him. "We need to tell Mr. Blanton now. The State Department needs to get Dr. Smith out now so he can send the signal."

Spencer sighed, "The story said that we'd broken off diplomatic relations with them," he said sadly. "It's worth a shot, though."


	11. iHave an Idea

"I understand. Thank you for trying," Richard Blanton said into the phone. "You have a good day, too, Mr. President."

Freddie was astonished at the lengths the billionaire was able to go to try and get Dr. Smith released from Yerba, although the scientist would also face jail time in the US. Kidnapping is a serious offense. Unfortunately, even with Mr. Blanton's extensive connections, it was a no-go.

"The President even tried to call the Chancellor of Yerba personally, but the Chancellor refused his call," Blanton informed the group. "The State Department said to give the little dictator a couple of weeks to cool off, then we might be able to get Yerba to extradite Smith."

"Carly and Sam don't have a few weeks!" Spencer exclaimed.

"Sorry, but their hands are tied," Blanton replied. "It looks like we're going to have to figure out and undo whatever Smith did ourselves. Freddie, why don't you and Miss Pensky go to Dr. Smith's office and see if you can find out what he did."

So it was that the computer nerd and his new girlfriend were searching through Dr. Smith's files trying to figure out his scheme. They quickly ran into an issue. The guidance system itself was tens of thousands of lines of poorly documented source code. The hack that Smith used to strand the girls in space could have been staring them in the face, but like the proverbial needle in the haystack, it was impossible to find.

"Arrgh! What we really need is administrative access to the ship's computer. Then we could see what's running, and what was uploaded before takeoff," Freddie lamented.

Quinn gestured to an industrial laptop case sitting in the corner. "There's the laptop they used on the suborbital flights. Now if only we had a TID cable several hundred miles long…"

"That's it!" Freddie exclaimed.

"Freddie," Quinn chastised, "even if we had a cable that long, you know the signal drops out after 30 feet or so."

"No," Freddie explained, "the robot! If we hook this laptop up to the console instead of mine, and we have Carly unplug the TID cable from the camera and plug it into the terminal, we should be able to stream our signal the same way we streamed the video feed for the show."

Quinn leaned over and kissed Freddie full on the lips. "That's brilliant!" she exclaimed. "Freddie Benson, _you_ are a man after my own heart."

"Kinda thought I already had that," Freddie smirked.

"I kind of thought so, too," Quinn replied, with a flirty lilt to her voice. As Freddie started to draw her in for another kiss, though, she pushed him away. "Later! Let's go save your friends, first!"

The young couple ran down the hallway to the control room, Freddie carrying the heavy case. As they came flying through the doors of the room, Spencer and Mr. Blanton turned to look at them. "Did you find anything?" the billionaire asked.

Quinn walked over to the two men while Freddie went to his station with the laptop. "Smith doesn't seem to believe in documenting code, and his programming methodology is something else. It would take us years to decipher that mess." Noting Spencer's sad expression, she continued, "But, we have an idea that might get us administrative access to the computer from here. If we can get in, we should be able to undo whatever he did."

"You're the experts," Blanton answered. "Whatever you think is best."

Knowing that the whole control room was watching, Freddie put Carly and Sam on speaker. Both girls were in the common room, Sam eating the last of the frozen meals while Carly munched dejectedly on a celery stick. Sam might be able to eat through anything, but the brunette tended to stop eating when she got depressed. Carly wanted to take a really long shower, but wiping yourself down with antibacterial wipes just wasn't the same.

"Carly, Sam, we might have a way to get you down." Both girls looked over at the camera on the sound of Freddie's voice. This was the best news he'd given them, especially after Spencer had told them that Dr. Smith was in jail and couldn't release control. "We need you to break out the R2 unit again. We're going to try to use the robot to get administrative access to DAN."

Fifteen minutes later, the girls were huddled over the terminal in Cabin Two, with the cable from the robot plugged into the port on the terminal. Freddie and Quinn were huddled over the laptop now sitting at Freddie's station, which was plugged in there. Carly and Sam were still wearing their pressure suits, and they had once again donned their helmets so that they could talk privately.

"You're sure DAN doesn't know what we're up to?" Sam asked.

Quinn answered, "DAN can't see the transmissions from the ground to the robot, but he can see what you're doing in the cabin. He shouldn't object, though. No one even considered this scenario when they were programming his security."

"Good," Sam replied.

"Okay, so you should be able to see the same thing on your screen that we see here. Let's see what processes are running." Freddie typed a few commands and a list of programs appeared on both screens.

"What the heck is that?" Quinn asked, pointing out a specific program, LOSTINSPACE.

"I think that's our bug. Not a very clever name," Freddie answered.

"It doesn't have to be," Quinn pointed out, "no one should be able to see it once the ship is in space."

Freddie typed a command: **Kill Process LOSTINSPACE**. He was about to press enter when Quinn noticed something worrisome, "Look, it's taken life support as a subprocess."

"What's that mean?" Carly asked. She didn't like the sound of that.

She was right, as Freddie explained, "That means if we kill the process, which should release control, your life support also goes out." He pulled his hands away from the keyboard, command still visible on the screen.

"Okay, let's not do that!" Carly exclaimed, very worried.

Freddie wasn't so sure. He looked to Quinn, "If life support goes out, how much air is in the ship? How long can they go?"

"About 30 minutes," the young intern replied.

"And how long does re-entry take," Sam asked, picking up on Freddie's train of thought.

"About 30 minutes," Quinn sighed. "That's cutting it _really_ close."

"Okay, what are our other options?" Freddie asked, dropping the idea.

"We could issue the 'reboot' command, force a reboot of DAN," Quinn answered.

"Okay, that's good," Freddie replied. "How long does it take DAN to reboot?"

"About five minutes," she answered, "but all ship's systems would be down during the reboot. Communications, life support, navigation, everything!"

"And depending on how Smith wrote the program, it might just load again on startup," Freddie mused. "Then we'd be back where we started."

"Another thing to consider," his girlfriend added, "DAN's never been rebooted in space before. If Smith's trojan damaged the operating system, he might not come up at all, and without the secure access, there would be nothing we can do about it from here."

Undaunted, Freddie continued brainstorming, "Any other options?"

Despite their best efforts, neither techie could come up with anything else. "We don't have to decide right now," Quinn pointed out. "They still have 3 days' worth of air and water."

"Yeah, but we're down to the powdered food," Sam pointed out. "It's worse than the stuff Freddie's mom cooks."

"Oh, you'll live," her girlfriend chastised. "I hope," Carly added under her breath.

Freddie had heard, "Don't worry, Carly, we're going to get you down. It'll be –"

He was cut off by the sound of DAN's voice from the speakers, "Unauthorized intrusion detected! Shutting down all external communications."

Suddenly, all of the screens in the control room went black. "Carly! Carly!" Freddie screamed into his headset.

There was no response from the ship.


	12. iReentry

"Unauthorized intrusion detected! Shutting down all external communications."

"Freddie, what's going on?" Carly screamed.

"Yo, Fredbag! Can you hear us?" Sam added.

Carly tried a different tactic, "Quinn? Mr. Blanton? Anyone?"

Sam was starting to realize what was going on. "DAN, can they hear us?" she asked the computer.

"No Miss Pucket, they cannot," the computer answered. "Security protocols have severed all communication with the ground."

"Bring it back!" Sam demanded.

"I cannot comply until the source of the intrusion has been detected and neutralized."

"Sam, what are we going to do?" Carly asked her girlfriend.

"Freddie left the command to kill that virus on the screen. I think we should do it," Sam answered.

"Didn't you hear Quinn, though? That'll shut off our life support!" Carly countered. "We could try their other idea and reboot, but then it might not come up." She paused for a few minutes, thinking silently, then she suddenly threw her helmet across the room, screaming, "Dammit, Sam, we're going to die up here and there's nothing we can do about it!" She started sobbing loudly.

"Cupcake," Sam said, taking off her helmet. She reached out to try to hold her girlfriend, but the brunette floated away from her and turned around. Sam spoke in a louder, more commanding voice, "Carly, listen." The younger girl turned to face her. "You know what my life's been like. If I can get through having Pam as a mom, I'm not about to let some malfunctioning toaster kill me." She floated toward Carly. "It's all because of you, you know that right?"

"Hunh?" Carly asked.

"I got through everything because you were there with me," Sam explained. "I knew I had a safe place to come to. I was always safe with you." Tears misted Sam's eyes, and she continued, "And that was when we were just friends. Now…"

"Sam…" Carly whispered.

"We're going to get through this because we're together. We're on our own, but we're not helpless. We'll think this through."

"You're right!" Carly said, surprising herself with her confidence. "We've gotten through all kinds of stuff together." Her thoughts drifted back to the last time they almost died together, on a window washer platform fourteen stories above the ground.

The blonde seemed to read her thoughts, "We've survived worse, Cupcake."

The two lovers simply held each other tightly for what seemed like an eternity, but was really only a few minutes. Finally, Sam's bright blue eyes met Carly's chocolate brown ones and the blonde spoke up, "I don't know about you Carls, but I'd rather die trying _something_ than wait around up here for the air to run out."

Carly laughed - a hollow, ironic sound, "Agreed. What should we do, kill the program or try to reboot?"

"I say we kill the program," Sam answered. "Maybe we can breathe slowly and make the air last."

Carly shrugged, "I don't have a better idea, so let's do it." She floated over toward the terminal.

Sam floated faster, blocking her way. "No deal, Cupcake! I don't know what's going to happen when we press that button. You go strap yourself in. Mama's got this."

"Sam…" Carly tried to argue.

"No Carly. I need you to be safe. Go!"

The brunette knew it was futile to resist. When Mama made up her mind, her mind was made up. She brought the blonde in for a tender kiss. "For luck," she explained.

Sam watched Carly float through the door to the common area as she put on her helmet and locked it. She waited a few more minutes for her girlfriend to buckle up and connect her air hose. She stared at the command on the screen for a minute, studying each pixel of each letter like it was the last thing she was ever going to see. Then, with a deep breath, she pressed the Enter key.

The result was a rather anticlimactic line of text on the screen: **Process Terminated.**

Before Sam even had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, however, an alarm started to sound. Next she heard DAN's voice over the speakers in her helmet, "Critical system failure. Emergency egress protocol enabled. Beginning deorbital roll."

Sam wasn't sure what any of that meant, but considering their present situation, "deorbital" sounded promising. Judging by the fact that the Earth was disappearing off the bottom of the window, she had clearly started _something_ happening, and the safest place for her to be right now was strapped in next to her Cupcake. She pushed herself off the desk toward the door.

What Sam didn't realize is that the room was rotating around her. The door opened on her approach, but her aim was off and her shoulder hit the doorway. Not hard, but enough to bounce her backwards a bit. On the second try she got through the door. By now, the Earth was completely gone from view.

When she got into the common area, she could see Carly strapped into the seat, which now appeared to be hanging from the ceiling above her. She aimed toward the empty seat next to Carly as she heard DAN's voice again, "Emergency braking thrusters engaging."

Rocket motors at the front of the ship lit up, and the ship decelerated rapidly to begin reentry. Unfortunately, since Sam was not anchored to any stationary objects on the ship in any way, her orbital velocity no longer matched that of the spacecraft. She was effectively thrown backwards into the front wall of the common room with great force, and she hit the metal hard.

Pain shot through Sam's body and she was pretty sure she had broken a rib. She knew she had to get strapped in, though, and she aimed again for the seat next to Carly. Still strapped in, her partner caught her and helped guide her into the seat. As Sam struggled to buckle her seatbelt, Carly connected Sam's air hose. Now settled into the seat, Carly took Sam's hand. "Are you okay?" the brunette asked.

"Hurts to breathe," her partner grumbled. Carly could hear her wheezing.

They heard the voice of the computer, "Beginning deceleration maneuvers."

"What's happening?" Carly screamed, befuddled by all of the activity.

* * *

><p>At the radar station in ground control, technician Kara Thrace had been watching her console for days. She was startled to see some of the numbers changing. So startled, in fact, that it took a moment for the ramifications to sink in. She yelled out, "The ship's slowing down! I think it's breaking orbit."<p>

Spencer and Richard Blanton were instantly at her station. "Look, it's losing speed and altitude. Now it's beginning S-turns."

Quinn was elated to hear that. It meant the ship wasn't simply tumbling out of orbit. The computer had control. Then she realized something important, "It's in the wrong place," she said.

"What do you mean?" Freddie asked.

"Considering where the ship started decelerating, it's not going to make Spokane. Not even close," the young girl replied.

"The Egress Protocol!" Pavel shouted from the front of the room.

"The Egress Protocol," Quinn repeated, slapping herself in the forehead.

"What's the Egret proto-thing?" Spencer asked.

"Egress Protocol," Quinn corrected. "When a major system such as life support fails, DAN reverts back to primary programming. He'll bring the ship down to the closest runway that's long enough for the ship to land on."

"Any idea where it's going?" Blanton asked.

"As long as it's doing S-turns, there's no way to tell," Kara chimed in from her console. "When it gets back on a straight course, we can plot its point of touchdown."

* * *

><p>Sam Puckett knew she was hurt badly. The ship was going through a wild series of turns that threw them around in their seats. Sam's chest was on fire and every time the ship changed direction, she'd experience tunnel vision. Only, now she wasn't coming all the way out of the tunnel, and it was getting narrower each time. She didn't want Carly to know how bad she was hurt, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could stay awake.<p>

Carly could see Sam's head lolling from side to side every time they turned, and she knew her girlfriend was in trouble. "Stay with me, Sam," she begged.

"Don't think I can, Cupcake," Sam moaned weakly. As they came around again, the tunnel closed in completely and Sam's body went limp.

"Sam!" Carly screamed.


	13. iHospital

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

_Sam! Oh my God! Is she even breathing?_

As the ship careened through space, Carly wanted to rip off her helmet and Sam's and start mouth to mouth, but she remembered Freddie's warning about crushing her internal organs. She watched as the view outside the window turned pink, then bright orange as the ship built up heat during re-entry. She was startled as Freddie's voice came over her headset saying that DAN was bringing the ship down – in Sydney, Australia. She screamed at him that Sam was hurt really bad and he needed to do something – anything!

Despite the young man's best efforts, as well as Quinn's, they were unable to calm Carly down. She barely noticed the sky turn blue, or the touchdown at Sydney Airport. The hatch was opened and paramedics came rushing in. Ground Control had informed the airport of Sam's injuries while DAN was requesting landing clearance from the tower.

Then there was the ambulance ride to the hospital. The sirens sounded so weird, and the trip seemed to take forever, even though it was only six minutes. Then there was the endless waiting for news of her girlfriend's condition.

Carly remembered it all.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Three of Sam's ribs had been broken, and her lung punctured. She had lacerated her left kidney and it was causing internal bleeding and had to be removed. The doctors said she was lucky. The air in the pressure suits had a significantly higher proportion of oxygen than the normal cabin air, which was the only reason Sam didn't end up with brain damage due to lack of oxygen. Thank God the suits worked on a different system, one that Dr. Smith hadn't taken control of.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Dr. Zach Smith was now number one on Carly Shay's Hate-O-Meter. He had easily surpassed Stuart and Ollie, Nevel Papperman, and even Missy Robinson._ He_ was the reason she was sitting here in Sam's hospital room listening to the heartbeat monitors with red eyes, watching her unconscious partner sleep. Carly didn't know how bad prisons in Yerba were, but she had seen stories of people in foreign prisons on TV, and she hoped it was _far worse_ than those. That was mean, and Carly hated to be mean, but in this case she could easily make an exception.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

A representative from SpaceCation's Sydney office had stopped by earlier, letting her know that the company was taking care of everything, and that her brother and her friends were on their way with Mr. Blanton in his private jet. It had been almost 12 hours now since the spaceship landed. They should be arriving shortly.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

If there was one bright side, it was that while sitting in the waiting room, Carly had come to a life-changing decision. It didn't matter that she was still in high school. Sam's act of bravery and self-sacrifice reinforced for her what she had known all along. She didn't want to leave the hospital, but the nurse had said Sam would be in surgery for hours, and if the surgery had gone wrong, well, Carly could wait to hear that. She didn't _ever_ want to hear that. Money was no object – a simple phone call to the SpaceCations rep had taken care of it. The company was afraid of multi-million dollar lawsuits, so they'd do just about anything to make her happy at this point.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Carly knew Sam was going to be okay. The doctors had said so. She was only unconscious because of the anesthesia, they said. Carly hoped this to be true, but until she could look into Sam's beautiful blue eyes and hear the blonde's voice, the hurt wasn't going to stop.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

"Carrrlyyy!" She heard her brother well before he came barreling into the room. She was going to chastise him for being so loud in a hospital, but it didn't matter. She was so glad to see him that she would have cried, if she'd had any tears left. "Sam's going to be okay," he whispered, but Carly just wanted to be held. She weakly smiled at Freddie and Quinn standing in the doorway holding hands.

Freddie walked over to his friend's hospital bed. Even though she was constantly mean to him, he had always known it was all in fun. It hurt him to see her like this, even though, like Carly, he knew she'd be okay. He brushed the blonde hair out of Sam's eyes. His own were tearing up and he had to get out of the room. "We're going to go get something to drink. You want anything?" Carly shook her head. "Come get us when she wakes up, okay?" he asked softly.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Spencer held his little sister tightly. He felt terrible for what he was thinking, but he couldn't help it. As much as he loved Sam, he was glad it was her and not Carly in that bed. The last few days had been a rollercoaster, but the touchdown had been the worst. The whole control room had been surprised when DAN reestablished communications, but Freddie had thought fast, switching Carly's voice to the room's speakers almost immediately. Spencer was simultaneously relieved and devastated to hear his sister's voice. Relieved she was okay, devastated to hear her screaming for Sam.

He had been sure the blonde was dead.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

He was never so relieved to be wrong.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

The room smelled funny. _What kind of detergent is Spencer using on the sheets, anyway? _She hated sleeping on her back, but she couldn't get her body to roll over. There was a tightness in her chest and her side hurt. Worse, she felt as though she was thinking in a fog. It was just like being in Miss Briggs' class. She flailed around blindly, looking for her partner. In her flailing, she smacked her knuckles against something hard. "Ow!" she cried, cradling that hand in her other one.

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Carly heard a sharp smack and a yelp from behind her. Spencer was holding her, and Freddie and Quinn had left, so it had to be… She spun around so fast she fell backwards into her brother, who managed to keep his footing and prop her up. "Sam!" Carly cried, eyes misting over with joy. "Spencer, get Freddie!" She ran to her girlfriend's side as her brother went to find their missing friends.

"Cupcake?" Sam moaned weakly. Her eyes were open but glazed over. It was so hard to think. By now, she realized she wasn't in Carly's room, and she struggled to remember what was going on. "Where are we?" she asked.

Carly laughed. Now that Sam was awake, such as it was, life was 100% better. "You're in the hospital. In Sydney, Australia."

"Sidney who?" Sam replied, still not getting it.

"No, Australia, down under. That's where the spaceship landed. Don't you remember?"

Now the fog was starting to lift. Sam remembered hitting the wall when DAN started reentry. It was pretty much a blur after that. But if they were in Australia, that meant… "We're on Earth? We made it!"

Carly grinned. "Yeah, we made it, although you were touch and go there for a little bit." She paused and collected herself. "Sam, I was so worried."

Sam's eyes were clear now, but her thoughts were still somewhat jumbled. "My chest feels tight. And my back hurts."

Carly could easily explain, "They bandaged up your broken ribs, and you had a punctured lung. That's why you're wearing an oxygen tube up your nose." Sam's hand reached up to feel as Carly continued, "You also had a lacerated kidney, and they had to take it out. Don't worry, though, they said you can live a perfectly normal life on only one kidney."

_Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Now that Sam's thoughts were straightening out, so were her priorities. She asked the question she knew should have been her first, "Are _you_ okay, Carly?"

"Thanks to you, I'm fine," Carly answered honestly. "You made me strap myself in. Do you know you hit the wall so hard you actually left a dent? You could have been killed, you dumb blonde!"

Sam could hear that Carly's last words lacked any real venom. Her partner was just worried. "But I wasn't, Cupcake," she said gently, reaching up to hug Carly. It was then that she noticed something weird about her left hand.

_Beep… … Beep…_

Sam's heart actually skipped a beat as she noticed the gold band on the third finger of her left hand. A small but perfect diamond adorned it. Her breath caught too, as she exclaimed, "Oh my God. Is… Is that what I think it is?"

"It is," Carly answered. "When I was sitting in the waiting room while you were in surgery, I kept thinking that I almost lost you. I don't ever want to lose you again, so I ran down to the jewelry store across the street and bought that." Carly dropped to one knee next to Sam's bed, "Samantha Michelle Puckett, will you marry me?" She giggled as Sam nodded her head, speechless.

"Congratulations guys," Freddie's enthusiastic voice came from the doorway. From the way Quinn's arm was intertwined with Freddie's, Carly suspected that other relationships might be further in bloom than she thought. She smiled at him knowingly.

Spencer was opening and closing his mouth like he wanted to say something, but he wasn't sure what. Carly cut him off, "Don't worry, Spence. I'm not planning to do anything rash. We'll graduate college first." She looked sternly at her fiancé lying in the bed. "Both of us," she clarified. Sam grinned.

Spencer looked relieved. "Okay, but you have to tell dad," he answered. He walked over to his future sister-in-law's bed and tousled her blonde hair. "Welcome to the family, kiddo. Glad you're back with us."

**The End**


End file.
